Calling a Wrap on the Great Dendritic Storm Cycle of December 11–14, 2022

What an incredible, long-duration, dendrite-filled storm.  I'm calling it a wrap, although the next storm moves in tonight.  

I'm pretty certain Alta came in at over 50 inches. The NWS had them for 47 inches at 430 AM this morning.  They got another 6 inches of cold smoke today.  53 inches here, 53 inches there, pretty soon it adds up to great skiing.  

Indeed we did some deep-dive dendritic sampling in the Wasatch Backcountry today.  The ages of my partners ranged from 24 to 65, the former for trail breaking and the latter to show old-school powder skiing form.  I started the day with a proper breakfast for an all-day tour.  

Snowfall during the day was light, but consisted of primarily of lightly rimed ice crystals, many of dendritic, six-armed form that has dominated the storm cycle. 

There was only a very brief appearance made by the sun and it provided only feeble warmth.  

We are not quite to the coveted 100 inch base at Alta Collins for official Steenburgh Winter to begin (peak so far is 95"), but do you know how lucky we are to have this much snow with the low angle sun of December?  Granted the avalanche conditions are an issue, but all aspects harbor the Greatest Snow on Earth right now.  It's all good.  How about those south aspects today...

The best powder skiing we had today was on the south side of the compass.  I love the low angle sun!